The City of Delray Beach is looking to increase the parking fee some business owners pay to help build parking garages or city lots.
The city dictates how many parking spots a business must have based on what it is and how big it is: an office needs one spot per 300 square feet while a restaurant needs six spots per 1,000 square feet. Each time the use of a building changes the incoming business must meet the new parking requirements.
But some buildings just don’t have enough parking. Instead of building more spots, a business can instead pay into a pot of money the city uses to build public parking.
In downtown Delray Beach, businesses have to pay a little less than $16,000 per missing spot. It costs the city $28,000 per spot to build a garage.
To make up some of the difference between the fee and the market rate to build parking, the Delray Beach City Commission wants to increase the per-spot fee, depending on where a business is located.
In the downtown corridor, the new fee may go up as much as $7,400 per spot, but in the western parts of the city, the fee would only go up a few hundred dollars.
The Delray Beach commission will vote on the increase at its meeting on Aug. 5.